John W. James

Where were you when I needed you?

The saddest question we ever hear is, "Where were you when I needed you?"

That's what people ask when they find out what we do in helping grievers. We're presenting helpful and accurate information on this site, at the time you need it most, with the hope that you'll never need to ask that question.

It's an honor and a sad privilege to be addressing you, knowing that each of you has recently experienced the death of someone important to you. We also know some of you are reading this because of your care and concern for someone who is confronted by the death of someone important in their life.

We bring our personal experience in dealing with the deaths of people who were important to us, and our professional know-how in helping grievers for more than 30 years. We'll help you distinguish between the "raw grief" that is your normal and natural reaction to the death, and the equally normal "unresolved grief" that relates to the unfinished emotions that are part of the physical ending of all relationships.

A basic reality for most grieving people is difficulty concentrating or focusing. With that in mind, we asked Tributes.com to print our articles in a large type font to make them easier to read. Sharing our concern for grieving people, they agreed.

Ask The Grief Experts

We’d guess it's your nature and style to be open and emotive with your feelings. If that's true, we say, YAY! (Published 5-29-2012)

Q:

My son was 33 when he died unexpectedly in 2006. Many people tell me I shouldn't be so emotional after 5 years, when I talk about him. Also, his brother and father do not talk about him because it makes me emotional. I tell them they just need to give me a box of tissues. We've never had a talk about him as a family since his death. Is this unusual?

A Grief Expert Replies:

Dear Kathyanne,

Thanks for your note, and we agree, there can never be enough tissues.

In our 35 years of helping grieving people, we've learned that grief is indeed individual and unique and that the way and pace at which people experience the emotions of grief bears a direct relationship to how they normally react emotionally to all life events that involve change and can cause feelings.

With that, we’d guess it's your nature and style to be open and emotive with your feelings.

We also believe that it's normal for you to still have feelings 5 years on, as it will be in 10 or 20 years.

If that's true, we say, YAY! Because there's nothing wrong with having feelings and expressing them in real time.

Of course we're saddened by the non-actions of his brother and father. In not taking about him, they may rob you of the potential of the very emotions that are helpful for you to feel and express. We don't say that in order to judge them, but because we know that grieving people “need and want an opportunity to talk about what happened and their relationship with the person it happened to.”

Sadly, it’s not unusual for families to avoid or ignore the emotional pink elephant in the living room.

While we’d love to encourage you to suggest to his brother and father that you have an evening of memories about the young man who meant a great deal to them, we don’t know if they would be at all receptive.

The fact may be that the two men in question are apprehensive about their own emotions and are afraid to let it all out.

If that's the case, and they don’t want to have the joy [and sadness, and other feelings] then you need to look around your extended family for people who know you and knew your son, who might be open to sharing stories and feelings about him.